The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch) Read Online Free

this region, or do you come from some lost colony of the Empire of Shend?"
    "That's part of what makes this so strange," Kreg said. "This isn't any language I've heard before, yet I could speak it from the moment I first met the nomads." He shook his head.
    "I don't understand any of this.  Simplest explanation is that I'm lying in that alley with a fractured skull and you are all the hallucinations of a dying man." He waved a hand, as if to dismiss the thought.
    "I have some knowledge of foreign lands," Shillond said. "Perhaps if you described your land and its neighbors, I may be able to recognize them even if I don't know the name."
    Kreg shook his head. "I don't think so."
    "Oh?" Shillond asked.
    Kreg laughed. "No, and I doubt you'll believe the reason why not."
    "You can only try." Shillond said.
    "All right." Kreg shrugged. "Where I come from we've explored the whole of the world and there is nothing like Trevanta anywhere.  And where I come from, there's only one moon.  So I must be on some other world. Either that or I am lying in that alley."
    "Travel between worlds?" Shillond stood up and began to pace.  A few seconds later, he stopped. “It is possible, I suppose, but I know of no one who has ever done so.”
    “Jandak, Father,” Kaila said, “He crossed the great void before the world was.”
    “Yes, Kaila,” Shillond said, “And spoke to the God of another world and brought back the plan by which the world was made.  I know.  But Jandak is one of the three First Gods.  No mortal has ever done so and I know of no wizards of sufficient power to make the attempt.  I do not have such power.”
    "Wait a minute." Kreg stood up. "Gods?  Wizards?" Shillond had sounded so intelligent, so rational, that Kreg had not considered that he could believe in magic.  And yet, did Kreg have any better explanation for how he had come here?
    "Of course," Shillond said, clearly puzzled by Kreg's question. He turned his right hand, face up, and a ball of light appeared in the palm. "I know a thing or two about magic."
    Kreg's world spun about him once more.  He had seen magic tricks before but no one had ever done anything like that.  The light was not fire, nor was it a glowing object.  It was simply light, a ball of blue light.
    "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto," he murmured.
    He fought down an urge to babble.  Magic.  There really was magic here.  Either everything he knew about reality was wrong or he was not just on a different world but in a different reality.
    Shillond stared into Kreg's eyes for a moment, his gaze forming a bastion to which Kreg clung while his world reoriented itself.
    "It is late," Shillond said. "Might I suggest that a meal and drinks would be in order?"
    "Aye," Kaila said. "Roast venison would suit me well, if they have it in this place."
    Kreg had almost forgotten that he was hungry but Shillond's suggestion made his stomach rumble.  He nodded and licked his lips.
    "The fare in the common room," Shillond said, "although not up to the standards of Aerioch, shall suffice I think.  And we will not have to brave the storm." He opened the door and motioned the two others to precede him. "Shall we go?"
    #
    Smoke hung heavily in the crowded room.  In one corner, men threw knives at a target stuffed with straw.  A shout rose in another corner as a rotund man won an arm wrestling match against a somewhat slighter opponent.  The loser groaned and money changed hands as the winners of bets collected.  Beside the large fireplace a minstrel wailed a ballad, badly off-key.  About half the patrons of the tavern wore rain-soaked clothes and water ran in tiny rivulets down their faces.  The sound of the rain was more muted here than in the rooms above.
    Kaila led Kreg and Shillond to the only unoccupied table in the room.  The crowd swirled around them but always left a gap before them, more, Kreg suspected, in deference to the way Kreg and Kaila towered over them than from any